SPITTING CHERRY PITS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (2/23/2013)

 

 

          Her cherry pies were delicious; however, she baked them with pits.  This meant that they could only felicitously be eaten in her backyard, allowing the diner to spit the pits as projectiles onto the back lawn.  Small boys were particularly fond of her cherry pies.  She said that she didn’t want to take the trouble to pit the fresh cherries from her backyard cherry tree.  Besides, she added, “The pits add to the flavor of the pie.”  Her lawn was a nursery for cherry tree seedlings.

 

          I’ve forgotten her name by now.  It was about sixty years ago when I ate her cherry pies.  She was a bit daft.  When I asked her about the highlights of her trip to Europe, she replied that it was “having tea with the Pope’s wife.”  She went on to say, “She was such a delightful woman.”  A widow when I knew her, she had her late husband’s dress coat of tails cut to fit her which she regularly wore in town when shopping.

 

          She was a dowager in the small town on the Ohio River where I was a pastor.  Small towns seem to tolerate odd personalities far better than large cities.  There is more room psychologically as well as spatially.  The only places odder are university faculties, and they’re tightly compacted.  As a consequence, my second parish was filled with unique people, but that isn’t the point.  My recollections of her delicious cherry pies with pits set me to thinking about seed saving.

 

          Years ago, when I first heard of seed saving, the first word that came to my mind was “quaint” and then “luddite,” a kind of primitive return to simpler times.  So many of the seed savers I knew were horticultural fundamentalists, anti-modernist in their tendencies, fervently chanting, “Gimme that old time religion.  It’s good enough for me.”  I thought, “Why save seeds when it’s so convenient to buy them?”  Besides, thumbing through seed catalogues is lots of fun.

 

          Now, Fundamentalists are basically reactionary, reacting to the emptiness of a fast track society, wanting to save the heirloom beliefs of the past.  The trouble is that they save the chaff of the past mistakenly thinking that they’ve kept the wheat.

 

An industrial, commercial, and electronically digitalized society reduces and eliminates differences and idiosyncrasies.  A reductionist society doesn’t tolerate either the odd and the daft or the seeds of a wide variety of plants.  It cultivates only those types of seeds that easily produce the most abundant crops and are, thus, the most profitable commercially. 

 

In the Great Irish Potato Famine in the middle of the 19^th century over a million people died relying on one type of potato.  When the potato blight, originating in the Toluca Valley in central Mexico, infected the potatoes in Ireland almost all the potato crops failed.  Since potatoes were the mainstay of the Irish diet, especially amongst the poor, there was mass starvation and, hence, the Irish migration to America.  Ireland suffered about a 25% loss of population.

 

Commercial and industrial agriculture is setting us up for the same catastrophe, reducing the varieties of food we eat to those that are the most commercially profitable, laying our food supply open to a new blight.  If there are many varieties, then if one variety collapses because of blight, there are other varieties free of disease.  In corporate sociopathy, greed prevails over safety and well-being.

 

          Many times throughout my life, I have come to believe that which I originally disparaged, certainly politically and theologically, and now horticulturally.  As I learned in college, I don’t have to be a Fundamentalist to be a Christian.  Unless a person is a politician, it’s all right to change one’s mind.  As a matter of fact, it’s often regarded as a sign of intelligence.

 

          Seed saving is a simple, down-home way of preserving our food supply.  If the big boys won’t do it, then the backyard gardeners will have to do it.  Three sources on seed saving are:   http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/vegetable/seed.html, http://www.library.pima.gov/seed-library/, and Jeff Schalau, the Yavapai County Extension Director.  To find him: type “Jeff Schalau Saving Seeds” on your search engine.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2013

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit GARDENING ETCETERA for the Arizona Daily Sun where this article was published 6/29/2013.  Smith emails at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.

THE ANSWER MAN: Watermelon Radishes

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (6/6/2013)

 

Q.  Oh! Yoo-hoo there, Answer Man, Louella Kardashian here.  Remember me!  I’m back again!  It’s watermelon radishes this time.  My hubby, Longfellow, feels he’s nearing his final fashion show.  Up here you’d call it the last roundup.  Anyhoo, he’s been feeling guilty about the way he spent his life, especially making oodles of money in the low fashion industry.  As he says, “Givin’ ‘em want they want.”  Having spent his life with low fashion types, you know, the butt crack crowd, he wants to meet his Maker with a touch of class.  The nabobs call it hochkultur, that’s German for high culture in case you didn’t know.  A cultural upgrade.  I just can’t image God being low class, you know, Bach and Shakespeare and Gorgonzola Encrusted Filet.  So I looked around for something high-toned to soak up a little culture.   

 

A.  I’m not sure of your point.  I’m neither a fashionista nor an eschatologist although I’m with you about the butt crack crowd.

 

Q.  Patience, Answer Man, I haven’t gotten to my point.  After nosing around, I discovered the Flagstaff Symphony Guild.  I thought that if anyone could upgrade us culturally it would be people who liked that kind of music.  I wangled an invitation as guests to one of their meetings.  You’d never guess where they have their meetings?  No brown bag church basement.  Lunch at the Cottage Place.  Talk about class.  Such yummy food.  And what a delightful group of people!  It’d been so long since we had had intelligent conversations with thoughtful people over a delightful lunch that we didn’t know what to say.  Plumbers’ drooping jeans splitting at the seams didn’t work.  You should join.  Might improve your manners after the way you’ve treated me before.  You were rude to me about the elk and deer eating my tulips, and I was hurt. 

 

A.  You’re right, I’m not a patient man, and I am on the side of the elk and deer.  Will you get to the point?

 

Q.  Oh!  Don’t be so jumpy.  Anyhoo, we had a spinach salad with watermelon radishes and a Marsala vinaigrette dressing.  Longfellow thought they were sliced kiwi.  They were so tasty, not as strong as regular radishes which I’ve never liked.  Do you know anything about watermelon radishes? 

 

          A.  Well, I’m happy that you’re finding a place for yourself up here in Flagstaff.  Maybe it’s the clean air.  Smog tends to lower one’s tastes.   Now, to watermelon radishes which are officially called Raphanus sativus.   Indeed, they add a touch of class.

          First, they’re easy to grow.  Now’s the time to plant the seeds when it starts to warm up.  They’re really an heirloom Chinese daikon although they look like a parsnip, a princess incognito, but when opened up, they’re a gorgeous fuchsia.  Unlike a lot of beauties, they’re low maintenance.  Fast growing, they need sun.  Before planting in compost enriched soil, dig in a 5-10-10 fertilizer.  Plant the seeds about ½ an inch deep, and then thin the plants to 3 inches apart.  A couple of weeks after they sprout, use a 20-10-0 fertilizer.  Unlike tomatoes, where the fruit is eaten, with radishes the plant is eaten so it needs lots of nitrogen.  They’re best eaten when about 2½ to 3 inches in diameter.  They should mature in about 53 days and can be sown throughout the summer. 

          They’re crunchy and sweet with a hint of spice, a very sophisticated vegetable.  Nutritious, they stimulate digestion and are thus especially useful after a dinner with too much fat and alcohol.  They also help with cholesterol levels and blood pressure.  They’re just right for those who live too well and the fast food low fashion types.  Eaten fresh, cooked, roasted, pickled, they shine as crudités.  They go well with  apples, cheese, vinaigrette, bacon, and cucumbers.

          They’re good for you, taste great, and are high-toned.  Along with Bach, Shakespeare, and Gorgonzola Encrusted Filet, you can add a spinach salad with watermelon radishes for that hochkultur encounter you’re planning for the end of the runway.

 

Q.     You don’t have to be such a smart ass, Answer Man.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2013

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit GARDENING ETCETERA for the Arizona Daily Sun.  Smith emails at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.

THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (5/21/2013)

 

           Dr. Margaret Quell of ECC Services is a former French instructor and a Francophile.  A witty gardening correspondent, she recently wrote me with a gracious correction to my faulty French.  She included in her email a saying in French apropos to snap beans.  “La fin des haricots,” “the end of green beans.”  She said that the meaning in French is “La fin de tout,”  “the end of everything.”  It reminded me of the famous saying variously attributed to Louis XV or his chief mistress Madame de Pompadour, “Après moi le deluge,” “After me the deluge.”  It’s hard to imagine a world without snap beans just as it’s hard to imagine a world without tomatoes and onions.    

 

          Just as “everything sounds better in French,” so lots of things taste better in French, especially their snap beans which the French call “haricots verts,” pronounced “ah ree coh vehr” with the emphasis on “vehr.”  The English is “green beans.”  They are longer, thinner, and tenderer with a more complex flavor.  Rather than plant the “same olds” this summer, try a little sophistication, better texture and better flavor with haricots verts.  French cuisine along with the Persian and Chinese is one of the world’s great cuisines.

 

          First, there is the matter of cultivation.  Some people prefer the climbing or pole varieties, claiming they have a superior taste; however, I prefer the bush varieties because I’m slothful and don’t want to fool around with the paraphernalia climbers require.  A toss-up.

 

As with everything and everyone else, beans want a good bed.  Rich, friable soils with plenty of compost or other organic matter make for good beds.  Sunny locations are necessary.  Since the purpose of planting beans is harvesting them, the fertilizer should be stronger in phosphorous which supports the production of flowers, fruits, and vegetables.  The P (phosphorus) in the N-P-K designation should be a higher.  Too much N (nitrogen) will make for beautiful plants but scant vegetables.   Several years ago, I fertilized my tomatoes with a high nitrogen fertilizer and had lush tomato plants with a few puny tomatoes.  One of the hazards of gardening is stupidity.

 

          The seeds should be planted an inch deep and two inches apart in rows 2 to 3 feet apart.  Sometimes, I plant the seeds in concentric circles in containers which are about two feet in diameter.  The pods are best harvested when young.  When lumpy with seeds, they lose taste and texture.   

 

          The Beurre de Rocquencourt or Butter de Rocquencourt is not exactly a haricots verts because it’s a yellow wax bean.  Well-named, Rocquencourt is one of the richest agricultural regions in France.  An heirloom, originally a migrant from Algiers about 1840, chefs favor it because of its fine flavor and tenderness.  It yields abundantly and early (50-55 days), and keeps yielding as long as it’s picked.  It’s a beauty on a plate, and its taste matches its beauty.  We sometimes forget that we eat with our eyes and nose as well as our mouth.

 

          The premier haricot vert from my experience and limited point of view is the Maxibel.  It produces straight dark green, thin beans about 6 to eight inches long in about 60 days.  They have been described by a chef as “crunchy, clean tasting, slightly sweet, and not stringy.”  The bushes grow about 22 to 26 inches high.  Again, it’s best to pick the pods when they’re young and immature to avoid the lumpiness that ruins their magnificence.  The seeds are a mottled purple and can be harvested late in the season for planting the year following.

 

          The Maxi bean is similar to the Maxibel, albeit a little shorter in length.  Its great advantage is that the pods grow on top of the bush rather than hidden underneath the leaves, making for easier picking.  The chef mentioned above suggests that the Maxi pods are best served slightly steamed with butter and sea salt.  As with the lilies of the field, they need no gilding.  Like the Maxibel, they are best picked when immature without lumps.

 

          Le début de tout.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2013

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit GARDENING ETCETERA for The Arizona Daily Sun.  Smith emails at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.

ON THE DEATH OF A DOG

 

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (5/5/2013)

 

People who study dogs generally agree that dogs evolved out of wolves, not the jackal as some had once thought.  The story goes that wolves gradually insinuated themselves into the camps and caves of primitive human beings, drawn by food and warmth, or were invited in to provide protection.  Were they invited or did they invite themselves?  Probably both.  It certainly was the case with Roxie.

 

About six months after our black lab, Flora, had been put down because of kidney cancer, our veterinarian, Dr. Michelle Brennan, in California called to say that she had unusual lab for us, one that she had rescued, and asked if she could bring her by our house.  Her previous custodians had planned to put her down because she had only three legs.  After sniffing each other out, she stayed for 15 years.  She came to the house and wanted to come in, and we invited her in, all of it simultaneously.

 

          The week before last she died peacefully in our own bed.  She was nearly comatose and incontinent, refusing food and water.  The veterinarian said that her organs “were shutting down.”

 

The unspoken agreement between the dogs and human beings is a trade-off, protection for food and warmth.  Now, Roxie, a yellow lab, wasn’t much of a protector anymore although she did bark when someone came to the front door.  In human terms at 16 she was about 112 years old.  She didn’t walk on her own anymore, slept most of the day, and possessed a beautiful smile.  With her luminescent pink snout aglow, she always greeted us with a wagging tail, barks of joy, and smiles.  You can’t say that for every loved-one and friend.  With Roxie it was every time.  That’s worth a lot, especially nowadays in such a bellicose society as ours.

 

          Some have asked why we didn’t put her down earlier.  She was in good health and happy until the last few days which brings us to another, more important reason, that we invite dogs into our houses.    They bring us joy.  They’re great companions.  We play with them, take them for walks, and simply enjoy their comforting presence.  Roxie was an in-house therapy dog.  She was a pleasure, especially her large soulfully hazel eyes.  Stroking her, she drew out stress and anger, replacing them with ease and bonhomie.  She was at our sides on her pad in front of the fireplace as we either watched television or read.  I passed her bed every night as I went to bed.  After my prayers, I always paused to stroke her and kiss her good night, more for me than for her.

 

          Although many may disagree, Roxie had a soul, just as did Flora.  Souls can be seen in the eyes which I am told are windows to the soul.  After eighty-six years, I have come to a sadness.  Not everyone has a soul because some people had traded them, just as did Faust, for something of lesser value.  It can be seen in their eyes, the eyes of a snake, blank.  We have fancy words for these transactions involving power, privilege, money, lust, and other tawdry goods: sociopath and psychopath.  It’s a trading down.

 

          Dogs are good at assessing people because they don’t get entangled in the contents of communication.  Some studies have shown that 87% of communication is in gestures, expressions, and tones of voice.  Thirteen percent is in content.  Human beings clog their brains with content and often ignore the real forms of communication.  Roxie didn’t.  Communication other than personal is unreliable and unsatisfactory, automaton like.  Roxie was a whizz at assessing people which is another reason to believe she had a soul. 

 

I feel sorrow for people who don’t like dogs and despise people who maltreat dogs.  Dogs with souls are far more rewarding companions than human beings who have traded their souls for the tawdry.  We grieve in the emptiness of Roxie’s passing, and in our evening prayers we pray for her soul in her passing.

 

All in all, the greatest gift of dogs is that they humanize us.  

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2013

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit GARDENING ETCETERA for the Arizona Daily Sun.  Smith emails at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.

A GATHERING IN THE MOONLIGHT

Tam Nguyen

The full moon meant a good time for my family in the Highlands of Viet Nam.  My father always told me interesting stories.  The story of the bat was my favorite because it always left me with curiosity about night life.  I did not have books or the Internet as I have nowadays.  Now, I can read or search around at the school library.

The full moon was very bright so we didn’t need turn on the lights or make a fire.  My father described to me the anatomy of a bat, the wings were as beautiful as opened umbrella.  I remember that the bat was a wonderful animal.  It had the ability to fly fast in the dark of night.  It had keen visual ability at night.  It also heard well.  It can hear highly pitched sounds.

 

My father told me a story about the bat and Buddhist lama.  The bat heard that the Buddhist lama was talented.  He understood about universe.  He also practiced divinity so that he could influence all the matter on the earth.  This is the reason that the bat came to confront the Buddhist lama.  Because of the bat’s jealousy of the lama, war happened.  The war was between two of most two equally talented beings on the earth.  It was interesting because they used their best skills, and because they were equal no one won.  Year after year, the bat and Buddhist lama fought and the war kept going.  It was making storms and dry seasons.  The weather was changing.  The war affected human beings.  People who lived by the weather and agriculture lost their crops and hunger was everywhere.  

Finally, the Buddhist lama commiserated with suffering human beings.  The tears ran down the cheeks of the Buddhist lama.  The Buddhist lama had sympathy the poor of human beings.  The bat surrendered to the Buddhist lama because the bat did not have a soul to understand suffering.  The bat was a good, intelligent, and talented animal, but the bat did not have a human sense of love as do human beings.  The animal just survived and went on with natural process.

The war was finished when the bat surrendered by kneeling down. This was the way my father explained to me why the bat sleeps with his head down.  Also for this reason, human beings honor the Buddhist lama by painting bats on the walls or tapestries behind the statues of the Buddha.  The talented Buddhist lama triumphed over the bat because he had big heart to love and accepted the talented animal which was also called the king of dark night.

When there is the full moon, I recalled a good childhood with my father with his stories which he told me occasionally when we harvested crops, corn, beans, and rice and brought them home from the field.  The neighbors gathered together, elders, children, and young people.  The children played hide and seek.  I could not hear well so I was always the loser because I couldn’t seek other children.  My father gave me a trick.  I did not need to move a lot to seek other children or hear their foot steps. I just stayed on one place and moved my head around to see the bushes moving.  I could guess where the children hiding.  Their favorite place to hide was under the bushes on the side of front yard within 3 or 4 meters of the area play.

The musk of night gave off an aroma, cooling, quite, and the smell the earth, and also at night I could hear sounds more clearly, the cricket and soft sound from nature.  The night breaks down the limitations of time.  The moon’s effervescence was like champagne.  The night is extraordinary, something like a stream of consciousness, allowing me stronger perceptions of my feelings as my mind floats.  These intimations of mine made me feel different from my friends who told me that I was crazy when I told them stories.

After the games, we got snacks of steamed fresh corn, steamed fresh peanuts or soy beans from my mother.

Tam Nguyen of Tam’s Gardening Service (853-6111) is a Master Gardener and a student at NAU and the Literacy Center.  Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit GARDENING ETCETERA and Smith blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com and emails at stpauls@npgcable.com.   

 

 

THE GRAND CANYON CAFE

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.

   My dentist, Tom Montfort, has been bugging me for years to write about Freddy Wong and the Grand Canyon Café.  Every time I opened wide, he’d talk about Freddy’s spread down in Camp Verde and his onions and tomatoes.  Montfort knew the way to my heart with his talk about onions and tomatoes.

 

          So, one cold January day while driving by on “66,” I dropped in for a bite to eat and some warmth.  Wong and his café are institutions in Flagstaff.  As the sign on the wall says, “Hunters, fisherman, and other liars are welcome.”  I felt at home.  I was a fisherman for many years and meine Űberfrau often accuses me of the same failing for which my mother accused my father, “spinning witty improvisations on the truth.”

 

          Montfort’s favorite dish is the “Bert,” a sandwich of bacon, egg, cheese, tomato, and green chili which Wong developed for the late Bert Babbitt.  Having wearied of the “same old” breakfast fare, he said to Wong, “Make me something different.”  When Bert Babbitt died after a long illness, Wong put it on the menu and named it after its progenitor.  Wong is loyal.    

Another of Wong’s gastronomic triumphs is a grilled cheese sandwich with his tomatoes grown in Camp Verde slipped in with the cheese.  Now, connoisseurs of grilled cheese sandwiches know that cheese and tomatoes are delightful culinary companions, especially when grilled between slices of bread.  The reason for the triumph of both the “Bert” and the toasted cheese sandwich is the tomato, the fresh, outside-grown tomato.  Montfort tells me that some aficionados of the “Bert” are such purists that they won’t order it during the winter when Wong is forced to use industrial tomatoes.  Montfort compromises himself and eats it all year long because, as he says, “It’s delicious.”    

 

Ann Marie Zeller, a gardening buddy of mine, clean water hawk, and habitué of the Grand Canyon Café, tells me that Wong’s chicken fried steak is “to die for.”  However, we’re focused on vegetables.

 

Wong, a restaurateur with impeccable credentials, was at one time the chef at the Hyatt Hotel in San Francisco, but he is at heart a farmer, especially a truck farmer.  Besides that, fine food demands fresh vegetables.  His odyssey as a farmer began in his mother’s backyard, growing corn as a boy.  He still helps his mother with her backyard garden. 

 

As anyone with an ounce of wit knows, truck gardening in Flagstaff is challenging.  As a young pastor, I learned that in ecclesiastical vocabulary the word “challenging” meant plowing infertile fields with scant hope for bountiful crops.  A classmate of mine from the hills of eastern Kentucky once said, “Faith looks mighty cold cut up four ways in a frying pan.”      

          At any rate, commercial truck farming in Flagstaff and environs is challenging, and a restaurant needs lots of fresh vegetables so Wong bought a spread down along the Verde River in Camp Verde.  The soil is rich silt, and the water is plentiful.  Now, Wong not only grows vegetables for his restaurant, but also sells them at Flagstaff’s Community Market on weekends.  Indeed, many other restaurateurs in the area buy his vegetables in season.

 

          Wong grows fresh vegetables from tomatoes, sweet onions, to all kinds of squash.   He prefers heirloom tomatoes, such as Columbia Leaf, Pearson, Mortgage Lifter, and Rainbow.  His squashes run from zucchini, yellow crookneck, patty pan, to butternut, and beyond.  True to his heritage, he plans on growing more Chinese vegetables to sell at Flagstaff's Community Market and use in his restaurant.  Thank God for immigration!

 

          One of his premier achievements is the development of a contraption made of PVC pipe which he pulls behind his tractor.  It allows him to pierce the plastic row cover, insert the onion set, and tamp it in place in one action.  The restaurateur is also an engineer.

 

          On May 26, Flagstaff’s Community Market will open for foodies to buy his fresh vegetables.  Of course, the Grand Canyon Café is open all year where he holds forth with spatula in hand and with his wife Tina by his side.        

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith

Photograph of Freddy and Tina Wong courtesy of Jake Bacon.  

Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit GARDENING ETCETERA for the Arizona Daily Sun in which this article appeared on April 13, 2013.  Smith emails at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardening.blogspot.com.

         

 

           

TOMATOES FOR DUMMIES

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/10/2013)

 

Lest the reader think the title of this essay indicates arrogance on my part, an accusation frequently found on the lips of meine Űberfrau, let me say that growing tomatoes induces the same humility as do my computer and my new television remote with 61 buttons.  I write with trepidation because I’m no authority and have had spectacular failures in growing of tomatoes along with some surprising successes.  Victims of forces beyond their control, gardens are acts of faith, not certitude.  The thermodynamic concept of dissipation seems apt since all kinds of things, such as cold spells, hail, wind, and diseases, can change a garden’s equilibrium.  In growing tomatoes, there are lots of “Why me’s?”  

 

As a dummy amongst tomato geeks, my essay is autobiographical rather than prescriptive.  Gardening without a greenhouse, I don’t buy expensive equipment or work hard.  I start with seeds in mini-greenhouses, called pellet kits.  As for seeds, I search out tomatoes that mature in 55-65 days because of our short growing season.  Anything that matures in 80 days means that you’ll be lucky to have about eight days of fresh tomatoes.  I always plant Galina, Sasha’s Altai, Stupice, Prairie Fire, and a couple of others along with a new one.  This year the new one is Beaver Lodge Slicer, a 55 day determinate tomato developed at the Beaver Lodge Horticultural Research Station in Alberta, Canada.

 

From the middle of March to the early part of April, I embed three seeds of each variety in six of the little discs of the mini-greenhouses.  I keep them moist and put the kit on a sunny windowsill.  I always plant twice as many discs as I will need because nothing ever succeeds completely.  Ted Williams once said that greatness as a batter means failing at bat only seven times out of ten.

 

Then watching the miracle of life as the seeds sprout into seedlings, I thank God.  Thanksgiving should be twice a year, at the birth of life and the harvest.  Pity the secularists, atheists, and other spiritual flatliners with no one to thank.  Thank, like bless, is a transitive verb.

 

      About a week after the seedlings have developed true leaves, I   transplant the strongest into bio-degradable quart pots full of planting mix.  After lightly fertilizing them with a balanced fertilizer, I keep them moist and watch them grow on various sunny windowsills throughout the house.  What a delight it is to watch growth especially in an age favoring apocalyptic doom!

 

About the middle of May, it’s time to put the young plants outside.  The older I get the more I favor container gardening for tomatoes.  The reasons are elementary: control of water and nutrients and protection from various soil-borne and air-borne diseases.  Tomatoes like a rich, friable soil.  Also, the containers can be placed throughout a deck or yard so that the plants aren’t close together, protecting them from the air-borne diseases of nearby plants.  If using a container, be sure to sterilize the soil if it isn’t sterilized already by putting a clear plastic sheet over the container for ten days, letting the sun do the work.

 

     Gradually introducing the plants to the outside, I plant them in containers, where I shelter them with another mini-greenhouse, the Wall o’ Water.  When it’s safe from freezing beyond the June 15 statistical date, the Walls o’ Water can be replaced with wire cages.

 

Using a balanced fertilizer the first week or so, I use a low in nitrogen fertilizer afterwards so that the nutrients will go to produce more fruit rather than foliage.  Tomato plants like it damp but not wet.  Now begins the season of tomato adolescence when parents have to keep a watchful eye for bad influences such as air-borne and soil-borne diseases, cankers, wilts, curly leaves, blossom end rot, etc.   If everything goes well, along about the later part of July, all through August, and into early September, I enjoy fresh tomatoes every day, and you can, too.  By the way, my favorite is the Siberian Galina, a golden cherry of luscious flavor.

         For more information check out this Master Gardening site:

http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/vegetable/tomatoes.html.  

Copyright (c) Dana Prom Smith 2013



Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit GARDENING ETCETERA for the Arizona Daily Sun in which this article appeared on 3/16/2013.  Smith may be emailed at stpauls@npgcable.com.  He blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.